Have any one you guys had problems with the hornady LnL ap? If so what are they. Im having trouble fl sizing on mine. I set up the die as instructed but the bullets I size on this press wont chamber in any of my guns. But then I move the die to my rock chucker and resize and everything chambers fine. Any input is appreciated.!

I size rifle rounds on my rock chucker so I can cam over. I like my LNL but I don't think it's the right tool for that kind of job. As to straight wall brass, I've never had any problems with sizing. The priming system takes a little tweaking and polishing to get it to work reliably but, other than that, the press has been flawless.

Using hornady dies. Set them up touching the shell plate and 1/4 turn further down. Have also set it a but further just to try and see what happens. All that did for me was get a hard kiss between the shell plate and die. Im using hornady case lube. This is happening on 22-250, 270 and 300 win mag.

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The reason you can't chamber the case is because the shoulder is too long. You need to lower the die some, but without a way to measure it, it's a hit or miss kind of thing.

I like the Wilson headspace gauge, it is a good quick check that tells you that you are trimming to the right length and sizing the shoulder properly, unfortunately it still doesn't give you numbers, so that you can write them down for future reference. At some point you will need to measure it. That means buying calipers, bump gauge, caliber inserts, etc...

I hope you like tools, because reloading takes a few. What are you shooting? game or targets? Do you have calipers?

__________________
"Socialized Medicine is the Keystone to the Arch of the Socialist State.” -Vladimir Lenin
"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them." - Thomas Jefferson (An early warning to Obama care)

If you have the dies too far down they will create a bump at the shoulder of the case. It can be hard to see and feel.
Essentially, the case neck bottoms out in the die before you reach full stroke. That last tiny bit of stroke begins to crush the case.

If these cases have been fired a few times you probably need to trim them down.

Other than that, I would ask why you are full length sizing your brass. If you only have one gun in each caliber I'd back the die out and neck size only.

Shane,
I assume the brass that you're resizing has been fired form the same rifle right?

1. If the answer is yes, get a fired case that hasn't been resized and measure it with the bump gauge (as in shoulder bump). Write that number down.

2. Your target size is .002 less then a fired case. Not shorter, but not longer or it won't chamber.

Having said all the above, I was not able to have any success with Hornady New Dimension Custom die. I got stuck cases, cases that wouldn't chamber, and cases that wouldn't extract from the rifle, etc... Finally a guy from my range after listening to my tales of whoe came to my house looked at my set up, tried it and told me to get rid of the Hornady dies and get some Redding dies. I did and magically all my resizing problems went away.

I don't want to start a war with all the sales rep on this site, but Hornady sells a lot of stuff, but most of it it's not very good. I have the LnL AP press, the Case Prep Center, GS1500 scale, the hand primer, etc... Some I still use, some I've managed to sell, others just sit.

Here's the big question since you're reloading for 22-250, 270 and 300 win mag. Are you reloading for precision or just for "good enough" reloads?

__________________
"Socialized Medicine is the Keystone to the Arch of the Socialist State.” -Vladimir Lenin
"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them." - Thomas Jefferson (An early warning to Obama care)

shane32 said: I will be reloading for hunting but would still like my loads to be accurate as possible.

Shane when you say as "accurate as possible" I translate that to mean precision ammo. My advice to you would be to simply buy the best store bought ammo that you can, because the road to "accurate as possible/precision" is not easy or cheap. Most hunters don't shoot enough to justify the expense of all the tools/toys to required to get there. Most hunters shoot less than 20 rounds a year. Guys interested in precision shooting put anywhere form 1,000 to 3,000 rounds a year down range. And most started out with the goal of getting the ammo as "accurate as possible". It just grows on you.

Having said that, if you have the time, money and inclination (two out of three won't work) and are looking for a hobby that requires both intellectual and physical discipline, indoor preparation and outdoor fun, than this is a great hobby.

FYI, since you've already decided to buy new dies, Wilson and redding both make dies with "bushings". Bushings are little steel donuts that fit inside the die and they are made in increments of .001. To find out the size that you need, with the calipers, measure the neck of a loaded round than subtract .001 and that gives you the size of the bushing that you will need.

__________________
"Socialized Medicine is the Keystone to the Arch of the Socialist State.” -Vladimir Lenin
"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them." - Thomas Jefferson (An early warning to Obama care)

In my humble opinion, the progressive press has too much flex in the shell plate to repeatedly size rifle brass with any hope of precision.
This may not be true of all progressives, in my experience with the Hornady, it is.

The problem with a progressive press is that it performs multiple steps simultaneously and is therefore impossible to isolate the individual effects of each step.
The sizing process runs up the ram up to a stop that is invariably different than what the seating die needs. Both are steps are to be performed to 1/1000 precision.

__________________
"Socialized Medicine is the Keystone to the Arch of the Socialist State.” -Vladimir Lenin
"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them." - Thomas Jefferson (An early warning to Obama care)

If he's using the same dies in both presses, the problem is not the die being out of spec. The problem is how it's set up.

Generally it's a trial and error thing to get the die set up properly the first time. The good news is that once you get it set, you should be done. All progressives are going to have more flex in them than a single stage, so it sometimes takes more tweaking to get things set right, and you have to learn how to apply the same pressure every time on the handle, and it doesn't matter what color press you have in that aspect.

I've loaded umpteen thousand .223 rounds and at least 750 .30-06 rounds on my LnL AP, so it's not the fact that it's a Hornady press or Hornady dies (I have Hornady dies as well for both calibers). You need to take the time to really tweak any progressive before it's going to work the way you want it to work - and forcing the issue or hurrying through setup and tweaking is going to lead to nothing but frustration with equipment that generally isn't warranted frustration.

This has been discussed many times before here, and the solution is often the same. Could be the die needs to be ground, and Hornady will do it....

However, often the press isn't being cammed over hard enough.

Screw the die in until it contacts the shellplate like the directions state.

Then, lower the ram, and screw the die in another 1/4- 1/3 turn. This will take all the slack out, cause the press to cam over hard- and likely get that last thousandth or two you're missing. Worked for me once on a stubborn die on my AP.

Then get the LNL headspace gauge and check the re-sized brass against your fireformed for the .002 "bump" you're seeking.

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